Art for the Millions: 100 Sculptures from the Mao Era

The Rent Collection Courtyard, a sculpture group founded in 1965 by teachers and students of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in Chongqing, created a work of 100 life-sized characters that count as major works in China's modern art history and are firmly anchored in China's collective consciousness. In a dramatic sequence of scenes, which brings together traditional Chinese, Soviet and Western representational elements, the sculpture group Rent Collection Courtyard portrays the ruthless exploitation of the rural population during the pre-Communist era. Because of its scale and its dramatic realism, after its completion this impressive group of clay figures was immediately made a model of art for the Cultural Revolution. As a result, numerous copies and variants of the ensemble have been prepared and presented in Beijing and elsewhere - usually accompanied by intense political and propagandistic texts. This detailed catalog illuminates both the genesis and reception of the unique works of art, which also attracted attention outside of China.